Old ice melts slower than new ice. Perennial ice, the newer ice, melts more quickly than the older ice.

“The Arctic’s oldest, thickest ice is melting and may undermine the entire Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite photos show. Some 965,300 square miles of perennial ice, more than a year old, has melted over the past year—a 50% decrease. Losses of older, hardier frost are even greater: Three quarters of ice more than 6 years old has melted in the past 12 months.” excerpt from:

Amidst all this denial of Global Warming I believe the following quote from Winston Churchill is appropriate:

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." Winston Churchill

Or:

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science" -Darwin.

Many see the most recent data on ice areas in the polar ice caps and conclude that Global warming is bunk. What they don’t realize is that this is “new” ice, seasonal ice, which will melt much more quickly when the seasonal change progresses.